Professor Celestino Soddu

Figure 17

Bouncing Vases, Ron Arad 2000

The impression in the work is of a fixed model that is acted upon by external forces that impose deformation. The model is ‘thrown up’ and then ‘bounces’: it is being virtually customized. The subsequent changes are predictable, albeit they may be complex. The bouncing vase itself is designed in the form of a helical spring, to deform in a particular way as with a spring or bellows.

The range of possibilities is readily apparent and is little different to scaling the overall form. The concept of designs generated from an animated model is non the less highly significant.

1.7.3 Professor Celestino Soddu

Professor Celestino Soddu has written extensively on the use of generative design in product design and architecture, since the 1980’s. From 1998 he has organised the annual international conference ‘Generative Art’.

In the late 1990’s, Professor Soddu recognised the potential of emergent rapid prototyping techniques to facilitate the Direct Manufacture of artefacts directly from computer based data. In a

generative computer models and rapid prototyping techniques (Soddu 1997). In 2001, as Professorial Research Fellow at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he claims to have created software that enabled the direct output of unique objects via Rapid Prototyping equipment. In his Stockholm paper, Soddu points out that, “Before the industrial era every object was unique, unrepeatable, and strongly connected to the identity of its maker or user” (Soddu 1997). He put forward the notion that in the post-industrial era the values of mass production were no-longer valid and that mass production would no-longer be more cost effective than individualised computer-driven manufacture. This prediction on cost was, and remains, over optimistic. It is extremely unlikely that in the near future Direct Manufacturing will be viable in high volume applications.

Although it is already proving viable in low volume niche applications and is likely to become competitive in medium volume applications in the years to come (Wohlers 2004).

Soddu points out that design optimisation need not necessarily lead to a single solution and that the

‘quality’ of a design is not the final result in itself. He discusses the subjectivity of both designers and consumers in regard to what is considered ‘necessary’ and ‘optimal’ and the impoverishment that has resulted from a disregard for the quality of uniqueness. Soddu describes how ‘idea-products’ could create a new market with industry buying into an ‘endless sequence of automatically generated 3D models’ (Soddu in Bentley & Corne (Eds) 2002).

The work is fascinating and ground-breaking. From a product design perspective however it is only the start. The computer generated ‘product’ forms that illustrate Soddu’s publications are figurative, Figure 18. They collections of primitive volumes representing for example, the lid, body, handle and spout of a coffee pot. These elements are then transformed and configured in different ways.

Soddu’s stated goal of a ‘recognisable design’ does not seem to be achieved in product design terms.

Figure 18

Computer Generated Chair Designs, Celestino Soddu 2001

There would not appear to be little difference between the results shown and those that would be expected from random configurations. The chair examples shown are recognisable as a ‘species’, only by virtue of a common chaotic make-up of random primitives. There appear to be few technical rules and little guidance or targeting. Functionality beyond the conceptual does not appear to have been a consideration in the work. In an example of coffee pots, there is little regard to function beyond the provision of an appropriate volume and spout. These are virtual designs. They potentially could be translated into real-world artefact but this would require substantial post-processing prior to any build. These are virtual designs The digitally manufactured output produced by Soddu in 2001, are small scale, appearance models, Figure 19. It is of interest and significance that theses pieces were generated automatically. They are however, ‘proof of concept’ rather than any form of prototype and are considerably less sophisticated than the vases and lamps presented by Arad in 2000 (Arad et al 2000). The lack of design in perhaps borne out by the absence of any functional outputs in the intervening years. The technical resolution of the output however does not detract from the significance and prescience of Soddu’s work at a concept level which is clearly ahead of its time.

Figure 19

Digitally Manufactured Chair Models, Celestino Soddu 2001

1.7.4 Fluidforms

Austrian Fluidforms describe themselves as a fusion between designers, artists and programmers.

Fluidforms offer the consumer the opportunity to create household items (vase or salt/pepper grinder), “according to his own visions” (Fluidforms 2005). This is achieved via an interactive web based experience. The user is able to adjust, via on-screen click and drag, the cross section of an axi-symmetric form. Control points on a cross section curve can be displaced in 2D modifying the form. Figure 20 shows two iterations, the pink control points may be dragged in both X and Y, the green in x only. The limited number of control parameters and their restricted range (14mm on the radius) limits creative expression. The artefacts are built in CNC cut wood laminate and hand finished. The customised element is essentially a decorative sleeve that houses a proprietary grinder mechanism or glass vase. This limits, to a large extent, the scope of what can be achieved.

Despite these limitations, Fluidforms is an example of true mass customisation. The design can be customised and ordered over the internet for a cost of 90 Euro (2008). The company passes the creative role to the consumer, “Fluidforms hands this role over to the customer. Thus, everyone can become a designer” (FluidForms 2005). There are set limits to the individual parameters but no relationships between them and hence no design intent is maintained beyond overall dimensions and a sacrosanct inner volume. This is an intriguing step forward in mass customisation as it is web based and allows interactive adjustment of form, rather than merely selecting options. From a design perspective however, it is reliant on the consumer for creative decision making. It is only the limited scope of adjustment that prevents ‘undesirable’ outcomes.

Figure 20

Serene Pepper Grinder, Fluidforms, Customisation Screen Shots, 2008

1.7.5 Front

An extreme example of Customisation is the Sketch Furniture project by Front, a Swedish Design Collective formed in 2005. Front have a reputation for subverting the norms of the design process with ‘products’, like wall paper, made by the gnawing of rats, Figure 21.

Figure 21

Rat Wallpaper, Front, 2006

At Tokyo Design week in 2006 the group showed the Sketch Furniture Project with furniture ‘drawn’

by motion of the hand in ‘thin air’, Figure 22.

Figure 22

“Sketch” Furniture Creation Video, Front, 2005

The movement is captured digitally and used as geometry to define an extruded surface. The virtual form created can then be built by RP technology, Figure 23.

Figure 23

Chair - Sketch Furniture Collection, Front, 2005

The video is extremely engaging; the 3D output however is extremely crude. There is no control:

the ‘designers’ work blind, unable to see where their hand is in relation to what has gone before.

The work is in essence similar to the work of glass and ceramic artist Tavs Jørgensen. In his Motion in Form project Jørgensen uses a data glove, Figure 24, to describe artefact features, such as the lip of a glass vessel, in space.

Figure 24

Jørgensen’s Data Glove

The results have been produced in glass and ceramic via CNC (Computer Numerical Control) milled tooling. Ironically, the ‘artist’ in this case puts considerably more control and constraint into his work, Figure 25 , than do the Front ‘Designers’ whose work is essentially performance. It might be expected that a design process would put greater emphasis on functionality and allow less freedom. Jørgensen however is using digital technology to capture the authentic momentary gesture of the artist rather than as a development tool to refine and perfect his ideas towards some notional ideal. The significance is that the vessel rims bear witness to discreet acts of the maker.

The usual meaning of the word “craft” opposes high-technology processes in which the hand plays a diminished role (McCullough 1996). Digital technology is to the fore in this project yet the ‘hand of the maker’ is evident and celebrated despite the physical separation of action from the manufacture.

Figure 25

One-Liner Glass Bowls, Tavs Jørgensen, 2008

Sketch furniture, with its crude extrusions, is also reminiscent of artist Roxy Paine’s Scumak No.2.

In this experimental automatically generated art, plastic was extruded via a randomly controlled CNC (computer numerically controlled) nozzle. The extrusion would be deposited onto a conveyer, which periodically would index along to begin the next piece, Figure 26.

Figure 26

Scumak No.2, Roxy Paine, 1998